Life Advocacy Briefing

South Carolina Defunds Planned Parenthood & Competitors

SOUTH CAROLINA’s GOVERNOR ISSUED AN EXECUTIVE ORDER in late August cutting off funding for abortuaries.

Gov. Henry McMaster (R) “directed state agencies to ‘cease providing state or local funds – whether via grant, contract, state-ministered federal funds or any other form,” reports South Carolina Citizens for Life executive director Holly Gatling, writing in National Right to Life News Today (NRLNT), “to any physician or professional medical practice affiliated with an abortion clinic and operating concurrently with – and in the same physical, geographic location or footprint as – an abortion clinic,’ according to a statement from the Governor’s office.”

And Gov. McMaster also, notes Ms. Gatlin, “directed the ST Dept. of Health & Human Services to seek waivers from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to allow the agency to exclude abortion clinics from the state Medicaid provider network.”

The NRLNT report quotes this declaration from the McMaster executive order: “‘South Carolina has a strong culture and longstanding tradition of protecting and defending the life and liberty of the unborn.’”

Gov. McMaster’s order follows quickly upon the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals upholding in August of Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s authority to issue a similar order in his state.

“The [McMaster] order communicates a powerful message,” writes Marjorie Dannenfelser in The Hill, “about the values of the people of South Carolina.”  Mrs. Dannenfelser is president of the powerful pro-life Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) candidate support and lobbying group.

Mrs. Dannenfelser notes in her commentary the qualified healthcare alternatives on which the people of South Carolina can safely rely. In fact, she writes, “Federally supported healthcare entities outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities by an average of more than 20-to-one nationwide and by a whopping 134-to-one in South Carolina. These centers,” she writes, “provide comprehensive primary and preventative care for women and families and don’t do abortions. They give many women the chance to have their basic healthcare needs met at a one-stop location.

“Gov. McMaster recognized this,” Mrs. Dannenfelser comments, “by making [what has been] Planned Parenthood funding available to these comprehensive healthcare alternatives instead. He’s also directed state agencies to create a public, user-friendly list of every one of these alternatives within a 25-mile radius of an abortion facility so that women can be empowered with real choices that meet a full range of health needs.”

Turning her attention to the need for change at the federal level, Mrs. Dannenfelser notes the Governor’s directive to his health department to “request waivers from the Trump Administration so that the state can also stop Medicaid funding from going to Planned Parenthood. The Obama Administration claimed,” she writes, “that states could not do this, so it’s important that the Trump Administration takes swift action to affirm the right of states to determine who can best serve Medicaid patients.”

Expendable

A MAJOR PRO-LIFE RESEARCH GROUP HAS PUBLISHED a new study analyzing Planned Parenthood’s financial and program reports and has told Charlie Butts of OneNewsNow.com the reality of its operations conflicts with its claim that “its healthcare services [are] the primary thrust of their organization.”

Dr. James Studnicki, vice president and director of data analytics for the Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI), “co-authored the research,” reports Mr. Butts, “and took a look at Planned Parenthood services, such as the one that supposedly helps people with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

“Dr. Studnicki discussed his findings with OneNewsNow,” writes Mr. Butts, “explaining that even though Planned Parenthood does conduct a tiny bit of treatment, they mostly provide testing for their customers. ‘For most of the services they provide,’” he said, “‘treatment is a very, very tiny fraction and most often less than one percent of the total national services,’ says [Dr.] Studnicki. ‘But for some of their contraceptive services, their national market share can climb up as high as 4, 5 or 6%.” 

And Dr. Studnicki pointed out, writes Mr. Butts, “many of the services provided by Planned Parenthood are easily replaceable. For example, … Planned Parenthood breast cancer exams are actually the same type women can do at home themselves.”

“‘Nothing that Planned Parenthood does would lead us to indicate that withdrawal of their services would be life-threatening or result in death,’ stated Dr. Studnicki” in the Butts report. “‘Most of what they do is relatively superficial.’

“Yet, Planned Parenthood has cornered the market for abortion,” writes Mr. Butts, “performing 35% of them nationwide. By comparison, General Motors has 17% of the auto sales market and Southwest Airlines garners 19% of domestic air travel. While Planned Parenthood promotes itself as essential to health care, [Dr.] Studnicki says that such fiction is essential to justifying the half-billion dollars in annual taxpayer funding it receives.”

Raw Exploitation

AN UNCHARITABLE TEXAS-BASED ‘CHARITY’ – the Lilith Fund for Reproductive Equity – has launched a campaign to raise funding for what the outfit calls “emergency” abortions in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, which has devastated large areas of eastern Texas, reports Doug Mainwaring for LifeSiteNews.com. (We are reminded of Planned Parenthood’s exploitation of Florida victims of  Hurricane Andrew 25 years ago, when the abortion cartel set up tents to lure expectant moms into sacrificing their children in Andrew’s devastating wake. Will they now victimize those threatened by Hurricane Irma?)

The Lilith Fund posted on its Facebook page, notes Mr. Mainwaring: “‘We’re creating an emergency fund for Harvey survivors seeking abortion care. With increased barriers like temporary clinic closures, displacement, loss of homes/vehicles and more, access to abortion just got even more difficult for those affected by Harvey. Donate to our emergency fund … .’”

Among several quick responses was this “tweet” from Sean Davis, co-founder of The Federalist, quoted in the LifeSiteNews report: “‘This is a great investment if you think the biggest problem with Harvey is that it didn’t kill enough people.’” More than a million Twitter users responded that they “like” the jab.

American Life League president Judie Brown declared, quoted by Mr. Mainwaring: “‘The very idea that the pro-death Lilith Fund would raise money to kill babies during everyone’s hour of need in Houston and elsewhere is beyond belief. … How callous and disgusting can any pro-abortion charity (excuse the word) get? We should be doing all we can,’” said Mrs. Brown, quoted by LifeSiteNews, “‘to help everyone suffering from this tragedy created by Hurricane Harvey, not adding to the death and destruction. God help us when the best response some can give is to suggest that killing babies is a charitable thing to do.’”

Texas Dismemberment Ban Put on Hold

THE SAME FEDERAL JUDGE who canceled Texas’s comprehensive abortion control law in 2013 has now blocked enforcement of the 2017-enacted Dismemberment Abortion Ban.

District Judge Lee Yeakel issued the temporary restraining order just before Labor Day, setting a hearing date for this Thursday to consider whether to block the law permanently. The law had been set to take effect Sept. 1, prompting a lawsuit by Planned Parenthood and Whole Woman’s Health abortuaries.

The abortionists claimed in their suit, according to Fr. Mark Hodges for LifeSiteNews.com, “that banning the dismemberment procedure places an ‘undue burden’ on women seeking second trimester abortions.” Dismemberment is the principal tactic of abortionists killing babies who have gestated beyond three months.  

Texas Alliance for Life executive director Joe Pojman declared, in a news release responding to the temporary injunction, quoted by Fr. Hodges: “‘Texas should have the right to protect innocent unborn babies from dismemberment abortions, in which a doctor kills a child by tearing him or her into pieces.’ …

“The Texas law defined dismemberment abortions,” notes Fr. Hodges, “as extracting ‘the unborn child one piece at a time from the uterus through the use of clamps, grasping forceps, tongs, scissors or a similar instrument that … slices, crushes or grasps … a piece of the unborn child’s body to cut or rip the piece from the body.’”

No civilized society should countenance such a grisly attack on vulnerable members of the human race. Nor should any federal judge.

Constructive Activism

A ROOFING CONTRACTOR HAS WALKED OFF THE JOB – with the new roof only half completed – upon his discovery that his client was actually an abortuary.

It happened in Wichita, Kansas, that the building he was working on was not a real estate office, as he had been led to believe, but was actually the South Wind Women’s Center, a notorious abortuary owned and operated by Julie Burkhart.

Noting the name of the roofing company installing South Wind’s new roof, Kansas Coalition for Life, according to a report by Operation Rescue’s Cheryl Sullenger, contacted the contractor and informed the company of the true function of the building. KCFL volunteers also contacted the roofer, complaining about his complicity with abortion.

“White-edged portions of the roof were the only parts completed,” writes Mrs. Sullenger, “including the area over the garage. However, the clinic portions of the roof still showed the original brown trim, indicating that none of the patient-used portion of the [leaky] building had been re-roofed.”

Furthermore, notes Mrs. Sullenger, “The roofing contractor left what appeared to be foam insulation material stacked on pallets in the parking lot. It may be a long time,” she continues, “before any more work is done. South Wind has had difficulty finding anyone in Wichita to work on their building and have had to go out of town – and even out of state – for some vendors, such as plumbers and electricians.”

Noted Operation Rescue president Troy Newman, “The message is loud and clear. The people of Wichita do not want an abortion facility operating in their city.”

For his part, KCFL board chairman Mark Gietzen “plans,” reports Mrs. Sullenger, “to send letters to all area businesses warning them of [Ms.] Burkhart’s use of deception to trick contractors into servicing her South Wind Women’s Center abortion facility.”

Carhart Shop Going Under

THE MARYLAND COALITION FOR LIFE HAS PURCHASED A HOT PROPERTY in Germantown – the building housing LeRoy Carhart’s notorious late-term abortuary.

“Germantown Reproductive Health Services” has been operating in the DC suburb since December 2010, notes Doug Mainwaring for LifeSiteNews.com, citing the Washington Post as source of the closure news. It is reportedly the only late-term specializing abortuary doing business east of the Mississippi.

The pro-life activist group which is soon to take possession of the property has been carrying on peaceful protests of the Carhart operation since its opening and since 2011 has been operating a pregnancy care center across the street.

Though Mr. Carhart assured the Washington Post that he is seeking to open another shop somewhere in the area and a spokesman for NARAL told the newspaper, reports Mr. Mainwaring, that the aging abortionist is “‘in the process of trying to get his facility operating,’” the shop’s Internet website, writes Mr. Mainwaring, “states uncategorically, ‘Germantown Reproductive Health Services & Prince Georges Reproductive Health Services have both permanently closed.’”

Sick New World?

Aug. 8, 2017, BreakPoint commentary by John Stonestreet & Roberto Rivera

            In late July, the MIT Technology Review published news many of us have been dreading: A team of scientists at Oregon Health & Sciences University have successfully created genetically modified human embryos.

            This is an early step, to borrow a headline from the Technology Review, toward “engineering the perfect baby.” It’s an early step in creating a parental arms race in which people with resources scramble to create their vision of “the perfect baby,” with, potentially, the eye color, intelligence and other traits they desire.

            And it’s an early step in playing God with human genetics, one that could very well place humanity on intimate terms with the devil.

            Using a technology known as CRISPR, which enables scientists to edit the genome of anything from bacteria to humans, the researchers “[changed] the DNA of a large number of one-cell embryos” in a way that demonstrated “that it is possible to safely and efficiently correct defective genes that cause inherited diseases.”

            Now that last part about “genes that cause inherited diseases” should sound familiar. Because every step down the modern biotechnology slippery slope has been justified in similar terms: as a way to alleviate human suffering. Thus, anyone who objects or even expresses misgivings about proposed innovations is forced to defend himself against charges of indifference to human suffering.

            The problem is, of course, that the slide down the slope never stops at alleviating suffering. At the very least, the definition of “suffering” is changed to include whole classes of people who were not even envisioned when the justification was first offered. The classic example of this is euthanasia which has spread from the terminally ill to the hopelessly ill to those who are merely tired of living.  

            Likewise, no one should believe for a moment that this technology, if perfected, will be limited to, as the National Academy of Sciences has recommended, the “elimination of serious diseases.” Only someone who hasn’t been paying attention would expect the NAS’s “red line” against “genetic enhancements” to be honored.

            All it takes is one scientist who decides, as the saying goes, that it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, and the parental arms race will be on – if not in the US, then somewhere else.

            And mind you, it’s not only us culturally nervous Christians who are disturbed by what CRISPR and germ-line editing portend. In early 2016, the Obama Administration’s Director of National Intelligence, Lt. Gen. James Clapper, listed gene-editing technologies like CRISPR as a potential “weapon of mass destruction.” In his report, Clapper warned that the technology’s “deliberate or unintentional misuse might lead to far-reaching economic and national security implications.”

            And the report continued, “Research in genome editing conducted by countries with different regulatory or ethical standards than those of Western countries probably increases the risk of the creation of potentially harmful biological agents or products.”

            But as Robert Gebelhoff of the Washington Post has pointed out, there really isn’t much difference between the kind of genetic engineering that took place in Oregon and the eugenics that Clapper warned us about.

            For starters, both involve a distinction between “desirable” and “undesirable” traits. While in some cases “undesirable” will seem obvious, in most cases the criteria will “be determined by a worldview that prizes physical perfection above all, only considers temporal criteria of value and uses some image bearers as tools while eliminating others.”

            Christians can neither be indifferent to human suffering nor to the lessons of history. Even if this technology isn’t a national security threat, it’s still a threat to something even more important: human dignity.